Interracial Unmarried-Partner Households: How Do They Compare with Interracial Married-Couple Households in Census 2000?

Tavia Simmons, U.S. Census Bureau
Martin T. O'Connell, U.S. Census Bureau

Census 2000 was designed to collect detailed information on the social and economic characteristics of people residing in the United States, at both small geographical levels and for population groups which ordinarily are too small to analyze from national-level surveys. This poster will use both of these strengths of Census 2000 to look at interracial couple households, a group that is usually very difficult to study. Additionally, 2000 was the first year that the race question was expanded on the Census form to include multiple race responses, and thus more racial detail is possible than ever before. Because of the particular strengths of census data, decennial censuses from past years have been used to look at interracial married couples. This poster will expand on previous studies, since it will compare married-couple households to opposite-sex unmarried-partner households, female same-sex unmarried-partner households, and male same-sex unmarried-partner households. This expanded study is possible because internal Census Bureau files (rather than a 1% or 5% PUMS file) will be used, thus giving a larger sample on which to base the study. Thus, because the internal file is the largest sample available, it will be possible to include same-sex unmarried partner households in the study and get more reliable, stable estimates of this subset. In deciding on a definition for interracial couple households, there is some difficulty in defining this group: Though respondents report their race and Hispanic origin on the census form, there is not a box to mark whether they consider themselves to be in an interracial relationship. (For example, does a couple in which one is Black and Hispanic, and the other Black and Non-Hispanic consider themselves endogamous (both Black) or interracial/interethnic (Hispanic/non-Hispanic)? Because we do not have this information, we will need to define it. We intend to show these couples not only by race but by Hispanic/Non-Hispanic partners, as these differences may be more common in some geographic areas than interracial partners or spouses. For the purposes of this study, there will be 14 race/Hispanic origin categories: Hispanic: White alone Black alone American Indian and Alaska Native alone Asian alone Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander alone Some other race alone Two or more races Not Hispanic: White alone Black alone American Indian and Alaska Native alone Asian alone Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander alone Some other race alone Two or more races So, in this study, if one person in the (married or unmarried) couple does not have the same race and Hispanic origin (of the 14 choices above) as the other person, they are treated as an interracial couple household. In addition, all couples who have both partners recorded as "Two or more races" will be treated as an interracial couple, as they are both multiracial people to begin with. This poster will be divided into three sections: First, it will summarize the number of interracial couple households at the national level. Second, it will look at how the four types of interracial couple households are distributed across the United States at the state level. Third, it will explore how interracial and endogamous married-couple households compare to unmarried- partner households on selected demographic and socioeconomic characteristics. First, the poster will summarize the number of interracial couple households at the national level, and then look at the percent distribution of different race combinations of interracial households. The poster will also look at the percent of interracial households across different types of households (married-couple households, opposite-sex unmarried-partner households, female same-sex unmarried-partner households, and male same-sex unmarried-partner households), and then explore the top ten interracial race combinations for each of these four couple household types. Second, the poster will look at the percent of interracial couple households in the various couple household types at the state level, using maps to pictorially show geographic distributions (for example showing the percentage of all unmarried-partner couple households which are interracial.) Third, the poster will explore, at the national level, how interracial couple households compare with endogamous couple households on several personal and household characteristics, including a) percent with own children under 18, b) percent in poverty, c) median household income, d) percent where both are in the labor force, e) percent where both have a bachelor's degree or higher, f) percent living in metro areas, g) percent who own their own homes, h) percent where neither are foreign born, and i) percent where both are age 40 or older. All of these characteristics will be compared for interracial and endogamous couple households by type of household (married-couple households, opposite-sex unmarried-partner households, female same-sex unmarried-partner households, and male same-sex unmarried-partner households). It is expected that there will be more interracial couples identified in 2000 than in 1990, due to the expanded race question on Census 2000. It is also expected that there will be higher percentages of interracial unmarried-partner households than interracial married-couple households, and that interracial unmarried-partner households will be younger, less educated, and have less household income than interracial married-couple households, as was found in the 1990 Census.